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Muslims Ignored Jerusalem for Centuries
(Boston Globe) Jeff Jacoby - There isn't a member of the Arab League or the Organization of Islamic Cooperation whose right to designate its own capital city is challenged by anyone. In every nation governed by Arabs or Muslims - or, for that matter, by Scandinavians or Africans or Christians or Latin Americans - foreign embassies are located in the capital. Every one, without exception. Only Israel has been treated differently. Mohammed never saw Jerusalem or walked its streets; his Arab followers didn't conquer Jerusalem until six years after his death. During the centuries when various Islamic dynasties controlled Jerusalem, none established Jerusalem as its capital. After 1948 when east Jerusalem and the Temple Mount were under Muslim rule, they were ignored by the Arab and Muslim powers. No foreign Arab leader ever paid a visit, not even to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque. Palestinians placed so low a priority on Jerusalem that the Palestinian National Covenant of 1964, the PLO's founding charter, makes no reference to it. Only when the Jews returned after the Six-Day War did the Arabs grow passionate about Jerusalem.